Laura Bates

From Weinstein to Westminster, a torrent of allegations of sexual harassment and assault have left us reeling. One hundred years since some women were first given the right to vote, we are still struggling to get to grips with the extent to which gender inequality continues to flourish in our society. Laura Bates uncovers the sexism that exists in our relationships, our workplaces, our media, in our homes and on our streets, but which is also firmly rooted in our lifelong assumptions and in the actions and attitudes we explain away, defend and accept. She joins the dots to reveal the true scale of discrimination and prejudice women face and makes a passionate argument for stepping back, opening our eyes and allowing ourselves to see the bigger picture.

Laura Bates will be in conversation with Jenny Lacey.

Background material for this event is in the Festival of Ideas blog Laura Bates.

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How to Book/

Online booking is via Eventbrite and managed by Festival of Ideas. Please use the contact function in Eventbrite or get in touch with any online booking queries. Tickets are also available to buy in person at Waterstones Bristol Galleries or on 0117 925 2274. Waterstones Loyalty Card holders can purchase tickets at the concession rate in person at the Galleries shop.

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Laura Bates

Laura Bates is the founder of the award-winning Everyday Sexism Project, an ever-increasing collection of testimonies of gender inequality which has been described as ‘one of the biggest social media success stories on the internet’. She was the recipient of the Georgina Henry Women in Journalism award for Innovation at the 2015 British Press Awards. Her first book, Everyday Sexism, was shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Book of the Year award and Political Book Awards Polemic of the Year, and named one of the Bookseller’s Top 10 Non Fiction Books of the Year, and her second book, Girl Up, was a Sunday Times bestseller. She is a contributor for Women Under Siege, a New York-based organisation working against the use of rape as a tool of war in conflict zones worldwide, and is a patron of Somerset and Avon Rape and Sexual Abuse Support, part of the Rape Crisis network. She was awarded a British Empire Medal in the 2015 Queen’s Birthday Honours List and has been named a Woman of the Year by The Sunday Times, Cosmopolitan, and Red magazine and was named ninth on the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Power List 2014. She received the 2014 Oxford Internet Institute Internet and Society Award alongside Tim Berners Lee. Her latest book is Misogynation: The True Scale of Sexism.